News of the Weird / Pro Edition (April 25, 2011) (Part 2)

Prime Cuts of Underreported News from Last Week, Hand-Picked and Lightly Seasoned by Chuck Shepherd
April 25, 2011 (Part 2)
(datelines April 16-April 23) (links correct as of April 25)

From Yr Editor

Wrote a long one. Could have put it all out Monday. Better: half Monday, half today.

Below The Fold

Cavalcade of Rednecks: (1) A 26-year-old woman was charged with a grab-and-go at a convenience store in Crestview, Fla.--an 18-pack of beer stuffed under her shirt. (2) A 25-year-old man was arrested for trespass after, he said, he forgot exactly which strip club he had been banned from and accidentally wandered back into that one. (3) Sharon Newling was arrested in Salisbury, N.C., for shooting at her stepson (not at him, she said, but shooting toward him to make him stop working on his car). (4) Stephanie Preston married Bobby Duncan in Greensboro, N.C., at our lady of Jiffy Lube cathedral. (5) Carey Newman, 34, was arrested in Franklin County, Ill., charged with throwing a lawn mower at another woman. Northwest Florida Daily News /// Northwest Florida Daily News /// Salisbury Post /// WGHP-TV (Greensboro) via WTKR-TV (Norfolk, Va.) /// The Southern (Carbondale, Ill.)

Rabbits hop, of course, but do they hurdle? Can you race them? Why not? There's the Kaninhop circuit, with a presence in Europe (and, allegedly, the U.S., Canada, and Japan). They even high- and long-jump. (World records are about 39 inches, either way.) And are animal-rights people going nuts at this? What do you think? (Bonus: When the rabbits aren't on the course, they're leashed--and you know perfectly well why.) Spiegel Online

Updates & Recurring Themes

Of course the real Ganges River is ridiculously polluted [NOTW 536, 5-15-1998], but now the clueless Hindu immigrant population of New York City has found a home away from home: Jamaica Bay, adjacent to JFK Int'l Airport. It's a protected federal seashore, but getting harder to use as a seashore, given all the junk offerings Hindus make in the Bay. (Bonus: Unlike the Ganges, which at least flows, Jamaica Bay basically just sits there, and the trash bobs.) New York Times

Chutzpah! James Tesi is a "sovereign" [NOTW M199, 1-30-2011], except he's a variant, a member (caucasian, to boot) of the (black) Moorish National Republic, but he's nobody, he says, subject to nobody's law, but he has now sued in federal court to get the police in Colleyville, Tex., off his case. He's an indigenous person of Amexem and owns land near Colleyville, but that's not "property" like we think of it. Colleyville Courier

A drive-thru funeral home opened in Compton, Calif., one of a handful in the U.S. [NOTW 764, 9-29-2002], but especially important for gang funerals, since the viewing glass is bulletproof. Los Angeles Times

Houses That Hoarders (and Messy People) Live in: This is wa-a-a-y No Longer Weird . . . except for the photos . . . and except for the fact that a six-year-old was hiding out under his favorite piles because he thought he was about to get in trouble! Chillicothe Gazette /// Master-Cleaners.co.uk (34 Messy Houses)

Your Annual Reminder of Easter in Cutud, Philippines, which is for the seriously no-pain/no-gain'ers (followed by more photos from around the world in which Christians give Muslims a run for their money on how viciously they can punish themselves to get on God's good side.) (Those crosses are heavy!) Daily Telegraph (London) /// Daily Mail (London)

Miscellaneous Sh*t

Yr Editor continues to be fascinated with the reviewers' pre-pub excerpts of The Pale King by the late David Foster Wallace because it is a tribute to boredom, which was a founding expression of News of the Weird way back at the time of the Nixon Administration. Sample deliciousness:He felt in a position to say he knew now that hell had nothing to do with fires or frozen troops. Lock a fellow in a windowless room to perform rote tasks just tricky enough to make him have to think, but still rote, tasks involving numbers that connected to nothing he'd ever see or care about, a stack of tasks that never went down, and nail a clock to the wall where he can see it, and just leave the man there to his mind's own devices.New York Times [April 1]

The VA Gets Its Man: The Iraqi insurgents and the Afghan Taliban couldn't kill him, but Marine Clay Hunt finally met his match: U.S. Veterans Affairs bureaucracy (and its underfunding). He killed himself on March 31 after a two-year campaign fighting post-traumatic stress disorder with mostly shrugs from the VA, which at the end, had flat-out lost his paperwork. "He saw multiple doctors and got medication for his mental ailments. But he struggled to get disability payments after his paperwork was misplaced.," read the Washington Post obit. "You fight for your country, then come home and have to fight against your own country for the benefits you were promised," he told the Los Angeles Times in 2010. "I can track my pizza from Pizza Hut on my BlackBerry, but the VA can’t find my claim for four months." Washington Post

On a cheerier note, it was National Army Day in Iran, or maybe (second photo down) National 1980s-Style Floor Mop Day. UPI.com

Who Said It--Sheen or Trump? "We are all martyrs. Love is a martyr . . . I am a martyr. But I am also a victim. And I'm a performer." "I don't tell people what to do. They know what to do." [Answer: Charles Manson, but, be honest, you debated Sheen or Trump, didn't you?] Daily Mail (London)

Editor's Notes

An elementary school's shunning of "Easter" eggs for "spring spheres," as reported last week from KIRO-TV news in Seattle, still has not been authenticated. I am beside myself that someone might actually make up news! It could be true, though. We'll see. The Stranger (Seattle) [Warning: slo-o-o-o-ow loading page]

Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

Redneck Rampage #1: Wasn't me! #2: Wasn't me either. #3: I wasn't even close to that area. #4: Ditto! #5: Nope, not me either. #6: Wasn't even in the state.

Bunny Hop Really, hopping rabbits make the news? That's weird!

Ganges USA How dumb do you have to be to confuse "river" with "bay"? Oh well, some details are always lost in translation.

Easter Fanatics I was subjected to a film of this fanaticism way, way back when in Sunday school. I got physically sick and the images have stuck with me for most of 60 years! But, hay! And this was a time when bad-guys didn't bleed when they were shot! Yea God!

National Army Day After seeing pic #3 I've my doubts about all the rest of the armament! Oh!!!! Don't miss the guys with the padded clubs too.

Kudos, Chuck!

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 04/26/11 at 07:49 AM

club hopping- when you get banned from a club, try to remember which one. maybe tell the designated driver where not to stop before the drinking starts...what?...no designated drive you say? oh nevermund.

shot towards him- she shoulda just shot the car.

juffy lube- oh well they do have lube in the title.

rabbit olympics- competition to choose the next easter bunny?

hoarders- i can't even look anymore at those disgusting piucs.

religious fanatics- what ever happened to not harming 'his temple'?

va- sadly, this type of abuse of our heroes is no longer weird, but it needs the spotlight kept on it till it improves. thanks chuck.

sheen/trump/manson- just different flavors of crazy.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 04/26/11 at 09:13 AM

expat, glad to see you made it home safely! hope it was a great vaycay sweetie.

Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 04/26/11 at 09:15 AM

Sovereign citizen: so, if you're not a US citizen, how about we deport your ass?